


Unspoken Words

by Arya_Rayne



Series: Ivory Flames [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ashe is Seteth's wingman, Ashe is best wingman, Ashe knows about flowers, Byleth expresses herself through flowers, Crimson Flower AU, Crimson Flower Route, Established Relationship, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Flayn - Crimson Flower, Flower Language, Flower communication, Mentioned Black Eagles Students (Fire Emblem), Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Mentioned Golden Deer Students (Fire Emblem), Seteth - Crimson Flower, Silver Snow Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23045287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Rayne/pseuds/Arya_Rayne
Summary: Byleth was an enigma, this much Seteth was allowing himself to acknowledge. She held no expression on her face, yet she keeps giving him flowers as if they meant something. Thankfully Ashe knows all about flowers, and the language behind them. From there a relationship is slowly build on words that weren't spoken, but gifted. Understanding is found in the most unlikely of places sometimes, and this understanding may just change the fate of Fódlan.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Seteth
Series: Ivory Flames [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656148
Comments: 21
Kudos: 72





	Unspoken Words

Byleth came to the Monastery with orange roses woven into her blue-green hair and a face of expressionlessness. Jeralt saw the flowers and smiled, but no one else seemed to understand.

\---

It started with a hyacinth. A purple hyacinth just left on his desk after the bell had run signalling the end of the day. Seteth had come back to discover it there, and he had initially thought nothing of it. It was just a flower. He didn’t know who could have left it there. Instead, the green haired man pushed it aside and started looking through class reports for the week, starting with the new professor’s report. He was pleasantly surprised at the thorough report.

The lovely purple hyacinth was left forgotten.

\---

The next time Seteth saw a hyacinth, he was being given it by Byleth. Her face was ever the flat emotionless mask it always was. The green haired man was beginning to believe she couldn’t feel at all, and wondered if she was actually a good choice to teach the students. The hyacinth was purple once again. Seteth took the flower and thanked the professor. She nodded and walked off.

Seteth noticed that she had still had orange roses woven through her hair. He pretended to ignore Jeralt’s stare as he went back to his work.

\---

The purple hyacinth was seen by Seteth again when he decided to observe Byleth’s interactions with the students. This time she was handing the purple flower to Ashe. Seteth would have thought nothing of it, just the professor doing something kind in light of a student’s achievement perhaps. But that assumption was pushed aside by what Ashe said to the professor as he accepted the gift.

“Why thank-you professor,” he said with a smile. “But you really don’t need to apologize to me. It was an accident, and you were busy talking to Edelgard. I should have also been watching where I was going.”

The flower was… an apology? Seteth was confused. Byleth left Ashe alone after that, and Seteth didn’t follow her this time. Unfortunately that choice lead to Ashe discovering him.

“Oh! Seteth,” he greeted cheerfully. “Were you trying to talk to the Professor?”

“No,” the green haired man hummed, looking at the teen. “I was merely observing her progress and it seems the Professor is getting along with you all well.”

Ashe nodded and looked in the direction that Byleth had walked and noticed one of the orange roses from her hair had fallen to the ground. He walked over and picked it up. He showed it to Seteth with a small smile.

“Professor Byleth has a unique way of expressing her emotions,” he said touching the flower in his hands gently. “I’m not sure if she knows how to express herself normally, so she does it through flowers. She’s fascinated by this place really. The orange roses mean fascination. Sometimes she will give students carnations that are light red to tell them that she is proud of their work in class.”

“What does the purple hyacinth mean?” Seteth asked, skilfully keeping the curiosity from his voice.

“It means ‘please forgive me’ or ‘I am sorry’.”

Was Byleth apologising to Seteth for something? Ashe excused himself because he needed to meet Caspar, taking the orange rose, but also picking up a flower which Seteth identified as valerian, leaving the Advisor alone without any advice.

\---

The next flower Seteth received from Byleth was not one, but two different ones. A rose with dark pink petals, and an iris. These came after Seteth had begrudgingly answered a question that the professor had. She had thanked him in her flat voice before running off somewhere, coming back a few moments later with the two flowers in her hands. She tried to smile at the man, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Seteth was confused, but accepted the flowers with a nod.

Later on a whim, Seteth would ask Ashe what the two flowers meant.

“Together they mean; thank-you for your wisdom and I respect you.”

Surprise was the only thing Seteth could feel.

\---

This kept going back and forth for a few months, Byleth would give Seteth flowers, each with a meaning, and Seteth found himself asking Ashe what each of the flowers meant. Today, Byleth had given the man a chrysanthemum with an apology for being unable to express herself properly. Seteth felt that there was a slight reprimand in her words, but with such an expressionless tone, he couldn’t tell. Byleth had walked off before he could respond.

Ashe told him that chrysanthemums meant honesty. Seteth blinked in surprise. Byleth was trying to be sincere?

“Brother!”

The voice of Flayn broke Seteth from his thoughts and he smiled as the young girl walked up to him.

“Oh, the Professor has been giving you flowers?” she asked with a voice which was sprinkled in delight. “I had wondered about the Professor’s habit. I would very much like to learn more about these flowers!”

Ashe piped up, expressing his willingness to teach Flayn. 

\---

Just a month after that, Flayn was kidnapped. Seteth was drawing further and further into himself as worry gnawed at him. He was mess when Byleth found him in the advisory room later that very month. He tried his hardest to contain his sinking despair, but it was hard when it felt like he was drowning. Something he did notice though was the small look of concern on the young woman’s face. Was he just imagining it?

She gave him two flowers and a piece of paper, promising that she would find Flayn. Seteth thanked her, and she left, looking back at him once before slipping out the door, likely to talk to her students. Her footsteps could be heard running on the stone floors.

Seteth looked at the flowers she had given him. One he recognised; purple hyacinth, she was apologising. The other flower he didn’t recognise, it had yellow petals and a black center. He looked at the scrap of paper he had been given with the flowers.

_Black-eyed Susan – Justice._

_I am sorry for what happened to Flayn, her kidnapper will be brought to justice Seteth, this I promise you. Take heart, I will bring Flayn back_

_Byleth_

The man stumbled back to his office, ignoring Lady Rhea as she called out to him, ignoring everyone, and then locking the door to his office when he finally stumbled inside. He looked at the flowers again before he allowed himself to break, sliding to the floor, tears streaming down his face, but not making a sound, keeping his cries of despair silent so that no one on the other side of the door would hear.

\---

Seteth was talking to Ashe. Byleth, as promised, had brought Flayn back, and he wanted to thank her. But, he wanted to thank her in her words, not his own, which meant he needed to ask Ashe to help him find the flowers. However this also meant that he needed to explain to Ashe why he wanted to apologise for treating the Professor like she was untrustworthy. This reveal of truth was met by the young man’s disapproval, but Ashe helped him pick out a small bouquet of flowers, telling him that this was the best way to apologise.

Dark pink roses. Purple hyacinths. Daffodils.

When he approached Byleth and gave her the flowers, the Professor’s eyes lit up slightly with delight. She gave him a slight smile as she took the flowers and carefully placed them in her room. Then she walked back to Seteth.

“Would you like to have tea?” she invited. Seteth accepted and politely offered her his arm. This was how their friendship started. 

The next day Byleth had woven the daffodils into her hair.

\---

Daffodils were changed for yellow roses and they seemed to match the joyous attitude around the monastery. There was a dance at the end of this month, and Byleth seemed somewhat confused. She asked Seteth about it one day while they were having tea together.

“It’s a night for students to relax, have fun,” the green haired man told her. The young woman still seemed confused. Even more so when the night finally came. Byleth had returned from a brief respite outside and she was surprised when Seteth stood in front of her, offering her a viscaria.

She smiled and accepted the flower, tucking it behind her ear before taking the man’s hand and allowing him to lead her into a dance.

\---

Their friendship was an odd one by any standard; they exchanged flowers to communicate a lot of the time. Seteth kept going to Ashe for assistance with the meanings behind different flowers, and the grey haired teen was happy to help. Everything was right in the world, and slowly emotions were starting to show on Byleth’s face.

He didn’t expect that emotionless mask to be completely shattered by despair though. He had been late to the scene and the battle was already over. It was raining, and the students of Byleth’s class were gathered around, staring in shock, sadness, pity, at the professor, who was crying over the cooling body of her father. The yellow roses that had usually been woven in her hair since befriending Seteth were soaked, falling from the young woman’s hair, to the mud around the woman.

Byleth was the picture of despair, and the roses were there as a mockery. Seteth sighed quietly and gestured two students over, instructing them to carry Jeralt’s body, while the green haired man carefully helped Byleth up and he gently lead her back to her room. Flayn followed him, and together they helped the broken woman.

Flayn tried her best to comfort Byleth while Seteth carefully removed the remaining roses from her hair. Both were murmuring words of comfort that the man knew weren’t being heard. Then Seteth left the room and let Flayn help the young woman. Right now, Byleth wasn’t a professor.

The yellow roses in Seteth’s hands sat there mockingly. Joy and friendship. The roses were tossed aside.

\---

The month after Jeralt’s death, Byleth stayed in her room, only coming out to teach classes until Hanneman and Manuela told her to stop and rest. The whole month she had dead leaves and roses, of a red so dark they looked black, woven in her hair. Ashe told Seteth that they were symbols of her grieving. Seteth took over her classes from Hanneman and Manuela in the second week of the month. 

During his free time he sat quietly with Byleth, offering silent support, which she seemed to appreciate. One night found her passed out on his chest after she had broken down in front of him, leaving him with only the ability to hold her as she cried. Seteth’s heart broke for this young woman.

\---

“Seteth!! Seteth!!!”

The panicked voice of Ashe echoed around the halls, causing the green haired man to look up when he heard the student who should have been preparing to leave with the Professor. Seteth caught the boy’s shoulders as he ran past and gripped him to centre his thoughts.

“What is the matter Ashe?” He asked, feeling dread creep along his spine. Mere hours ago he and Rhea had spoken to Byleth, whose face had been marred by fury. What had happened?

“Please, you have to stop the Professor,” Ashe said breathlessly. He held up his hands and Seteth realised that the boy was holding two different types of flowers. Small yellow ones, lotus corniculatus, sometimes called bird’s-foot trefoil, and lilies, orange in colour.

“Revenge and hate,” Ashe said seriously. “She snatched them from the gardens and stuck them in a braid she quickly made in her hair. Please Seteth! You can’t let her do this!”

The green haired man sent the teen back to his teacher and then went to rally the Knights of Serios to pursue Byleth. He was too late though. Something had happened, he could tell. The expressions on the student’s faces seemed to be angry, a few looked like they had been crying, and Byleth…

Byleth Eisner had mint green hair.

The young woman was unconscious and being carried on the back of Edelgard, other students of the Black Eagles, both original and those who had joined during the year, were hovering around their house leader. Seteth walked up to the students his eyes widening. He asked if they were all okay, and then asked for the story behind the Professor’s condition.

The events described sent a chill running down Seteth’s spine. Byleth had run straight into a trap set by Solon and the one who had killed Jeralt. The Professor had been consumed by dark flames as her students watched on, and then, just minutes later, Byleth emerged from a tear in reality itself, Sword of the Creator in hand, hair the mint green it was now, and instead of the trefoil and lilies that Ashe had said were in her braid, her hair was free and covered with poppies.

Later when Seteth asked Ashe, asked about the meaning of the flowers later, the man was left confused by the answer.

“Rememberance.”

\---

It was a week later that found Seteth comforting the Professor who had found herself in his office. She didn’t have any flowers in her hair this time. She had come to him shaking after talking to Rhea. For not the first time since the start of the month, Seteth found himself questioning Rhea. The Archbishop was not supposed to inspire discomfort or fear. And Byleth spoke in a quivering voice about how Rhea made her feel like a mere object, a vessel with no purpose but to have something placed into, like she wasn’t real.

That’s when Seteth understood. He shut the door and let Byleth hide in his office like it were a sanctuary. He pulled her into his embrace when she fell to her knees looking lost and confused. He whispered a promise to protect her in her ear. Her response was to murmur that she wanted the truth. 

“I’ll help you find the truth,” he murmured back. “Whatever it takes.”

\---

Byleth kept coming to him to avoid Rhea, and as a consequence he found his own relationship with the Archbishop decaying further. 

“I’m me,” the Professor said one day, her fist clenched in frustration. “Yet she looks at me and I know she isn’t seeing me! I’m not Sothis!”

Both Seteth and Byleth froze. That name…. it slipped out like a forbidden song, shouldn’t have been said, but beautiful and alluring; a relief to say and to hear. How did Byleth know? So the Professor explained quietly how she’d been guided by a girl with long green hair, sitting on a throne, who could turn back time, she told Seteth what the girl had done to save her, and how this girl disappeared, leaving her with new hair and eyes and powers that she didn’t understand.

Seteth decided that the poor woman was beyond confused with the events that had been happening, and Rhea’s new demeanour around Byleth was not helping in the slightest. And if Sothis had truly been guiding this young woman, she was now lost with new powers and no guide.

\---

The next day Seteth encountered the woman answering a question that Flayn had posed. The man listened to the Professor as she explained what the most important part of the church was, and he realised that this woman potentially extruded what Sothis used to be. Blunt delivery of important lessons, yet still managing to speak riddles. She spoke her mind and spoke passionately. 

Then the conversation changed. It was wrapping up and Byleth was beginning to leave, but Flayn still had one last question.

“Professor, wait!” Flayn yelped. “What if…. What if someone from the church harmed the students? You just said that both were important to the church.”

Something in Byleth’s demeanour changed, darkened even, as if she were remembering something.

“If that were to happen, Flayn,” she started, not looking back. Her voice was as cold as ice. “If say Seteth, or Rhea, or one of the Bishops, or any of the Knights were to try and harm one of the students here, any of the children, I would cut them down for their actions. There is no greater crime than to harm a child.”

And though the woman assured Flayn that such a thing wouldn’t happen, her assurance that Rhea could be trusted rang hollow to Seteth’s ears. As if Byleth was trying to cling to an ideal that was breaking in her mind.

\---

When Byleth left the Monastery with Edelgard for a week, Seteth tried to confront Rhea about her treatment of the Professor. The Archbishop would not listen.

When Byleth returned she gave him a single red rose. The man didn’t need to ask Ashe to know what this was a confession of. He wasn’t given a chance to respond though, for Byleth was called away by Shamir. He would respond to her flower later.

\---

Later never came however. Seteth had known what busy was, but for the first time in a long while he felt he could claim to hate it. His times to talk with Byleth were limited and before long, it was time for her to take her students and follow Rhea into the Holy Tomb. While the Black Eagles were on their mission, Seteth decided to find a flower that he could give Byleth when she returned. From his knowledge that Ashe had given him of flowers he picked out a small bunch of red tulips.

_Believe me. I love you._

However his gift was forgotten when Rhea returned from the Holy Tomb alone, the Black Eagle class was not with her, not the Professor, not the students, and not Flayn. The Archbishop was furious, and the energy that rolled off her…. Had she transformed?

“The Professor and her students have betrayed us,” was the spat out answer that Rhea gave when she called Seteth to her. “Flayn was was kidnapped by those filthy traitors, Seteth, they must be annihilated.”

First there was anger, the Professor dared to steal his daughter from him?! But as he returned to his room and saw the flowers he had picked out for her, the rose that she had given him, he actually stopped to think. Something didn’t sit right with that explanation, it just… didn’t sound like the professor at all. What had happened? Rhea mentioned Adrestia declaring war on the church and the Black Eagles siding with Edelgard the new Emperor. Not once did she explain how Flayn was kidnapped, how it had happened. Had… had Flayn really been taken? 

The man was left confused and with orders to mount a defence against a coming attack from Edelgard’s forces. 

\---

It was an unconscious decision in the end, right before the battle, where Seteth pinned a red tulip to his robes before picking up his silver lance and mounting his wyvern. As expected, the Black Eagle students and their professor appeared just as the sun was starting to melt below the horizon. Flayn… Seteth saw her standing next to Byleth with a determined expression on her face. Notably, Edelgard did not call out offering to trade Flayn for the Church’s surrender. No words were exchanged between the two sides at all and the fight merely began.

Even as Seteth called out orders and held his position, guarding the gate, he felt no urge to rush into the fight, he just watched. Watched as Lysithea, Dorethea, Hubert and Sylvain combined their spells into a controlled force of destruction that weaved its way through the buildings targeting soldiers, observed as Linhardt and Marianne worked together with Flayn to keep everyone healed, saw Ashe and Bernadetta covering the rest of the Black Eagles. And where was the professor?

Seteth’s gaze met the mint eyes of Byleth as she walked towards him with Edelgard and Caspar watching her back, Flayn, who had just cast a healing spell on the Emperor walked beside the professor. The woman had red roses woven through her hair. Anyone unversed would have thought them a symbol for the red of the Black Eagle house. More fool them.

“Seteth.”

“Byleth.”

“I don’t particularly wish to fight against you,” Byleth commented, her sword held passively at her side, emphasising her words. “Not when you can help me find the truth about myself. But if you force me to defend myself, I shan’t hold back.”

Seteth hadn’t raised his weapon either. The soldiers beside him were confused, wasn’t this woman in front of them a traitor, why wasn’t Seteth cutting her down and taking Flayn to safety? Nothing happened though.

“Father,” Flayn spoke up, causing the soldiers to startle and Seteth to look stunned. Emperor Edelgard was right behind her! Yet, the pale haired teen and Caspar didn’t even seem surprised at what Flayn had just said. Seteth’s daughter continued.

“Rhea has taken this too far. Crests should never have become what they are; the truth should never have been hidden. It is time to dismantle the lies, Father. Will you help us?”

_Will you betray Rhea?_

“Rhea said that the Black Eagles had kidnapped you_” Seteth cut off at the affronted look on Flayn’s face, taking a breath before continuing. “I was… furious at first. I wanted to know why. This question fuelled my rage. Until I saw the flowers I had picked out for Byleth… and I realised that Rhea’s explanation did not sit right… Byleth wouldn’t do that, and Rhea never told me how…”

The Knights who were standing with Seteth exchanged glances; this was not going the way they expected. They started to stare at the man on the Wyvern. Realisation slowly dawned on their faces, hidden under their helmets.

“Seteth…” Byleth murmured, tilting her head as she looked at him. “I told you, the children are the **_most_** important. And I will cut down **_anyone_** who dares to harm them.”

“Yes,” Seteth hummed, nodding in agreement. “I see now that she lied to me. It has come time for me to ask her why.”

Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by the three soldiers with Seteth dropping dead, curtesy of the arrows protruding from their necks. Seteth and those of the Black Eagles looked towards where the arrows had come from and saw Ashe standing on a nearby roof. The teen seemed to throw a salute at Seteth before jumping off the side of the building and going to assist Lysithea.

“Why…?”

“They were about to kill you, Seteth,” Byleth hummed. Seteth’s face morphed into one of shock, before he swallowed and nodded. There was a moment of silence where he seemed to reason in his own mind that he was making this choice, and then he raised his lance and offered his hand to Byleth, pulling her up behind him. They took off together to face the Archbishop.

Rhea did not miss the betrayal of her second in command.

\---

“You…. How dare you betray me! You side with that worthless piece of garbage who stole my mother from me, Seteth?!”

The man’s eyes widened, had Rhea snapped? Garbage? Since when did Rhea think of Byleth like that? Byleth, who hadn’t yet been untrustworthy, who kept her word? Then Seteth considered that thought. To Rhea, she perhaps didn’t know of the lesson that Byleth had given Flayn recently. Perhaps she did not know of Byleth’s promise. But that would still mean that somehow, for some reason, Rhea had threatened those whom the Professor considered children.

“What did you do, Rhea, to turn these students against you?” 

Seteth missed the look that Byleth sent him, shocked, but also grateful. No, he was focused on Rhea. Briefly his eyes landed on the woman’s hair and the lilies that had always adorned it. Once upon a time he thought nothing of those white flowers, now he knew better, and Ashe’s words rung through his mind.

_“White lilies are a sign of purity, heavenly presence. It seems appropriate for the Archbishop to wear them in her hair.”_

Now those lilies seemed to mock him as he pointed his lance at Rhea. Finally he resolved his actions in his mind, hearing Byleth behind him as she clung to his waist to not fall off the wyvern, seeing his daughter healing the Black Eagles, and seeing the crazed look in the Archbishop’s eyes. And, if what Byleth had told him last month was true then that meant only one thing…

“Your mother is gone Rhea, and she would be horrified at what you have become in her absence.”

Sothis had chosen to give her power to Byleth. Rhea was on a fool’s errand now. With luck Seteth could change Rhea’s mind, but not now in this battle.

\---

Seteth had hoped when he had taken Byleth onto his wyvern during the battle that he would be able to give the woman the tulips that he had picked after the fight had been won. But luck was not on his side once again. Instead he was forced to watch as Byleth, who had jumped from his wyvern to confront Rhea, fell into a chasm, at the claws of the Immaculate One, and he could do naught to rescue her, for Rhea then set her sights on him and Flayn. Edelgard’s cry of horror was matched by Seteth’s own.

She couldn’t have fallen, not Byleth! With an enraged cry Seteth threw himself at the dragon who had thrown Byleth over the edge. He no longer perceived Rhea, but a threat to his family who had torn away the second light to come to his life. Not again, he couldn’t lose the second woman he loved, not when he hadn’t even had the chance to tell her properly!

The battle was short lived after the Professor fell though, as Rhea saw the defeat for what it was and retreated.

\---

Once the Knights of Serios had either disappeared or surrendered, Seteth walked up to Edelgard who was standing at the edge of the chasm where Byleth had fallen. Neither person had anything to say to each other, but both seemed to be searching for something. It was the young Emperor who spoke first.

“Your daughter told me about you and her,” she said softly. “She said something about feeling the need to build my campaign on truth and trust…”

That gave Seteth pause; just what had Flayn told Edelgard, what was she intending on telling the Emperor? 

“Truth and trust is a good foundation for any campaign,” the green haired man agreed, turning to face the teen, despite the fact that she was still staring over the abyss. “May I ask what exactly Flayn told you?”

“She said that crests were not meant to be what they are today, she said that she was Cethleann, and promised to explain more after this battle. If she is Cethleann then that would make you Cichol, yes?”

“I do have to question Flayn’s choice in telling you this,” Seteth hummed, not answering Edelgard’s question, or perhaps indirectly answering it. “But… I can see the reasoning in why she did. Let us talk elsewhere, Edelgard. Somewhere more appropriate for this conversation.”

The Emperor looked up; letting Seteth catch a glance of the tears she was trying to hide. She nodded and went to walk past him, when the man brought a hand up to her shoulder.

“The goddess chose you, by technicality,” he murmured lowly to the teen. “The goddess chose to give her power to the Professor, thus moving on from this world. Though do not address Byleth as anything different. She hated when Rhea looked at her and only saw Sothis.”

\---

_In Imperial Year 1181, the new Adrestian emperor, Edelgard von Hresvelg, led a strategic assault against the monastery at Garreg Mach. Though her own losses were great, her foes had no choice but to surrender. Archbishop Rhea commanded the Knights of Seiros, leading from the front lines against the Imperial army. After a hard fought battle, she was forced to retreat to Fhirdiad, the capital of Faerghus, where she must now plan her next move. However during the battle, Seteth and Flayn, close companions of the Archbishop, chose to ally themselves with the Empire. With this single attack, the Adrestian Empire officially launched its offensive against the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance. The unification of Fódlan has begun._

\---

  
_Ivory Flames_  
_Ethereal Moon_  
_Imperial Year 1186_  
_The Heart of Reunion_

It was the middle of the day when Seteth walked into Garreg Mach, discussing the previous battle with Edelgard. The teen had grown into a fine young woman over the five years since the Monastery had fallen to the Empire, but Seteth always felt a pang of sadness when he looked at her. The radiant glory that should have been the Emperor was overshadowed by enemies that Edelgard had allied with.

Seteth could see how the young woman hated these people, and she had explained to him two years ago why she hated them, but still she allied herself with them. If only Byleth were here. She would know how to talk to Edelgard. Every month Seteth picked a new bunch of red tulips for Byleth, hoping, praying with all his heart that she would return so that he could give them to her. He never believed that she had died, Edelgard didn’t either and she helped him search. They still hadn’t found her, five years later. She wasn’t here and Seteth was left trying to convince Edelgard alone.

With a sigh he turned his attention to the Emperor again, ready to say something, when he stopped, realising that Edelgard was frozen in surprise. Following the young woman’s gaze, Seteth felt his own heart skip a beat. In front of them, shocked expression on her face, small bunch of red tulips from Seteth’s office in her hands, was Byleth, standing on the bridge that spanned the chasm between the main building of the monastery and the ruins of the cathedral.

A few hesitant steps forward was all it took before Byleth ran at him and threw herself in his arms, gripping onto him as if she were trying to convince herself he was real. Seteth slowly brought up his hand and ran it through her hair, which had no flowers in it. The man decided that he would fix that himself later, first he would revel in her return.

“Welcome home, my teacher,” Edelgard murmured with tears in her eyes as she watched on.

**Author's Note:**

> Ivory Flames! My "Seteth and Flayn" join Crimson Flower AU! This AU WAS going to be just Crimson Flower route, however as I kept writing this story and as I reached the end of the Crimson Flower route in my game, I kinda realised - I cannot do pure Crimson Flower if I have Flayn and Seteth following the Black Eagles joining Edelgard, it simply isn't viable. Then I decided - They're going to hunt down TWSITD. This story is one I'll be working on around my Kingdom Hearts and RWBY story, as I suffer from writers block and getting though Uni.
> 
> Here is a list of all flowers mentioned in this story and their meanings!
> 
> Orange Rose - Fascination  
> Purple Hyacinth - I am sorry, please forgive me  
> Light Red Carnation - pride and admiration "I am proud of you"  
> Valerian - readiness  
> Dark Pink Rose - Thankfulness  
> Iris - wisdom and respect  
> Chrysanthemums - honesty  
> Black-eyed Susan - justice  
> Daffodil - new beginnings  
> Viscaria - Will you dance with me?  
> Yellow Rose - Joy, friendship  
> Dark Crimson Rose - Mourning  
> Dead Leaves - Sadness  
> Birds-foot Trefoil - Revenge  
> Orange Lily - Hate  
> Poppy - sleep, peace, sadness, death, rememberance  
> Single Red Rose - I love you  
> Red Tulip - Belive me, declaration of love  
> Red Roses - Love, respect  
> White Lily - Purity, "Heavenly to be with you"
> 
> http://thelanguageofflowers.com/  
> https://australianballet.com.au/behind-ballet/the-perfect-flowers-to-give-to-dancers  
> https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/gardening/g2503/surprising-flower-meanings/?slide=46  
> https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/discover-wild-plants-nature/plant-fungi-species/birds-foot-trefoil


End file.
